No!
Jame shuddered at the memory, but what she held, blinking at her, was innocence.
“I think I know your elders,” Jame said to the shadow child. “May you too achieve that last metamorphosis and teach others how to dance, but not as I almost did. Farewell, unfallen darkling; Beauty, farewell.”
It smiled at her, flicked its wings, and rose from her arms. The others rushed in as it fluttered out the window and rose against a gibbous moon near the full. All watched it until it veered north and was soon out of sight.
“Legends indeed,” said Jame, turning to her cadets. “And a happy new year to you all.”
IX
Echoes of Kothifir
Speckled with drying blood, the Coman scout panted up the ridge through leafless trees.
“Their headquarters are near Perimal’s Cauldron,” she reported. “They spotted us. Hurl got egged.”
“The first cadet lost and it had to be one of mine,” said the Coman master-ten-commander Clary. “Still, that’s useful information. We can storm them while we still have full sacks.”
Jame sighed, her breath a cloud on the crisp air. Clouds scudded overhead against a bright sky, and the occasional snowflake drifted down. Spring, ever fickle, had turned to glance back at winter.
The Coman was annoyingly eager to leap ahead with the exercise. Perhaps uncertainty unnerved him, or maybe he wanted somehow to make his half of the team look good at the expense of hers, which was stupid. Of all houses to be paired with on this rare, much-coveted double lesson, why couldn’t it have been the Brandan or the Danior, her natural allies? Instead, she was set against both on the other side.
Anyway, hadn’t she seen Clary talking with Fash before the class? Fash, as usual, had been jovial. Clary had looked uncomfortable. Everyone knew that the Coman lord couldn’t make up his mind whether to support the Knorth or the Caineron who, after all, were his blood-kin. Awkward for him, unfair for his cadets, who couldn’t decide where their loyalty lay.
Still, while at Tentir all were family, regardless of house politics. That, according to the Commandant.
Ha.
“Such an assault should only be out of desperation if we run out of time,” she said, repeating the sargents’ earlier advice. “As it is, we still have most of the day if we need it. No one has found the target yet, and that’s the main objective.”
“It would help if we knew what we were looking for,” Clary grumbled.
He had a point, and made another one by not meeting her eyes, which also annoyed her. Surely she had gotten past that point at Tentir after two culls. Her ten-command stirred restively, picking up his tone and her discontent with it.
“The sargents say we’ll know it when we see it,” she said.
“ ’Ware, camp,” called a sentry.
Someone crunched up the northern slope from Tentir through the detritus of last year’s leaves. Color flared between white birch trunks, crimson shading into purple with swirls of turquoise. Who wore a court robe in the wilds? A thin, sallow face appeared, shiny with sweat under a thatch of lank, black hair.
“Graykin, what are you doing here, much less dressed like that?”
Her Southron servant drew himself up, trying for dignity’s sake to catch his breath, and slid his hands lovingly over his fine, silken raiment.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? I’m traveling with a caravan of merchants. One has to dress the part.”
“At m’lady’s expense, eh?” said Rue, coming up.
She had complained about how much of her allowance Jame had settled on her servant, not knowing how guilty Jame had felt about shortchanging him earlier. After all, before the Brandan settlement neither Jame nor Tori had had a bean to spare. Now either Tori had forgotten (again) or it was up to her to outfit all the Knorth cadets. So far, though, she hadn’t had a chance.
“Aren’t you supposed to be researching the Southern Wastes at the Scrollsmen’s College?” she demanded of Graykin.
He glared down his nose at her and sniffed. “I’ve learned all that I’m likely to at Mount Alban, thank you very much. It’s time to head out into the field, or rather south to Kothifir to prepare the way for you, Lordan.”
Why should that title irk Jame so much, coming from him? Probably because, as her self-appointed sneak, he equated his value with hers, and had what she considered to be delusions of grandeur.
Brier Iron-thorn loomed over them, the late-morning sun turning her cropped, dark red hair into a fire-tipped halo. She was frowning. “This caravan of yours, it came from the south but started peddling its wares at the Riverland’s northern end? Is this a sanctioned expedition?”
“Sanctioned by whom?” demanded Rue. As a brat from a northern border keep, she had limited firsthand knowledge of the South, which clearly irked her.
Brier, a born Southron herself, took pity on her and, incidentally, on Jame.
“By King Krothen of Kothifir. All spoils of the Wastes pass through his fat hands so that he can claim taxes and whatever catches his fancy, hence the source of his vast, personal wealth and, by extension, the existence of the Southern Host. Merchants are always trying to get around him, but whatever he doesn’t touch, wherever it goes, eventually crumbles to dust.”
Graykin clutched at his treasured finery. “What, even this?”
“Probably. Perhaps that’s why your new friends are trying to outrun their customers, but they’ll have little luck: most Kencyr know Southron ways.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Jame. “What’s in the Southern Wastes except sand, dead cities, and an occasional, inconvenient salt sea?”
“That’s the mystery,” Dar said, shamelessly eavesdropping with Mint at his elbow. “Seekers go into the desert, leading caravans, and come back with treasures. Sometimes Kencyr are hired as guards against clashes with Nekriens, Wasters, and Karnids, but they’re sworn to secrecy. Lord Caldane would give half his wealth to know what’s going on, which is why no one employs Caineron guards.”
“Kothifir itself is a strange place, from what I hear,” Erim added in his slow, deliberate way. One always expected him to say something stupid, but he never did. “The local temples keep losing their gods and trying to find them again. Months pass when nothing seems to work properly.”
Cadets stirred uneasily. Before Tai-tastigon, such a statement would also have thrown Jame. What, other gods besides he (or she, or it) of the Three Faces? The Kencyrath was perforce monotheistic, having been bound together by that enigmatic deity, yet other forces undoubtedly existed on Rathillien. For the first time, she felt an eager quiver at the thought of exploring this strange new city—if only she passed the final cull and was assigned there.
Rue had been shifting from foot to foot. “Maybe the merchants have something that won’t crumble when you look at it. Lady, please! You need finer clothes than your forage jacket.”
Poor Rue. Obviously she hadn’t forgotten the disgrace, as she saw it, of Jame’s appearance before the High Council.
Graykin handed Jame a sack of coins. “You have no idea what these are worth,” he said. “I’ve taken enough for my needs. Squander the rest if you want.”
My brother gave me this, Jame thought, balancing the bag’s not inconsiderable weight on her palm. He didn’t have to. Maybe, on some level, he also misses the days when we shared everything, before Father came between us.
She gave the sack to Rue. “Spend what you like, within reason. We won’t lose for lack of one cadet—I hope,” she added to the Coman ten-commander, who was looking restive.
“Can’t you discuss all of this after the lesson?”
he demanded.
“I may not be here when you’re done,” said Graykin, himself beginning to fidget. “The caravan is moving off as soon as its business here is finished . . .”